For 27 years, Republicans and Democrats came together to honor women in uniform at Arlington. This year, the ceremony was canceled after military branches cited Trump’s anti-DEI order. Women veterans do not need Donald Trump’s permission to be part of American history.

Good analysis by @jpanikoff. Getting back to Palestinian/Israeli issues in a serious way would also help re-build trust with Gulf states. Will require sustained, serious, and quiet diplomacy.

Remarkably, more than 100 days into the campaign, President Trump still appears not to fully understand the nature of the Iranian regime. Simply put, until a deal is actually signed, Iran will continue to act against anyone it believes is challenging the status quo in the Strait of Hormuz. And, as always, Tehran will respond to any U.S. military action against it, even if negotiations are on the verge of producing an agreement. Expecting Iran to refrain from retaliation merely because talks are advancing reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the regime operates. #IranWar‌

Very perceptive piece about AIPAC's difficulty in distinguishing friend from foe. AIPAC Wants Democrats to Back Israel. Instead, They’re Turning on AIPAC. nytimes.com/2026/06/12/magaz… via @NYTimes

Netanyahu Has Lost Middle America. Worth reading this piece carefully. Galston makes the essential point that Israel's negative image is not because its "messaging" is subpar. What a country does has far more impact than what it says. wsj.com/opinion/netanyahu-ha…

Israel Fast-tracks 1 Billion Shekels for 69 Illegal West Bank Outposts - Israel Political News haaretz.com/israel-news/isra….

Severing Israel's war fronts was never going to work | @dahliasc haaretz.com/israel-news/isra…

Check out "The End of Hedging? Kuwaiti Foreign Policy in the Presence of America First and in the Absence of Parliament" by Courtney Freer, featured in POMEPS Studies 60: Weak States in a Turbulent Middle East pomeps.org/the-end-of-hedgin…

See the last sentence in the story. This war has cost, as of May, $29 billion. wsj.com/world/middle-east/ap…

Really? Is this a Saturday Night Live skit? Has reality slipped into full parody? @SNLUpdate

Europe Wins Again. Obviously. Armenia went to the polls yesterday. And the results are exactly what you’d expect if you’d been paying attention for the past five years, rather than wallowing in Kremlin nostalgia like a damp sock. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared victory on Monday, with his Civil Contract Party leading with 52.5% of the vote.  Armenia, a landlocked country the size of Belgium that Russia has spent decades treating as a vassal state, has looked at its options and made a decision that required roughly the same level of intellectual effort as choosing between a Michelin-starred restaurant and a skip fire. They chose Europe. This election was less a routine vote than a referendum on Pashinyan’s post-2020 course reducing dependence on Russia and moving toward an explicit European orientation. And Russia, naturally, did everything in its power to stop it. According to Reuters, citing Western intelligence officials, the election faced heavy Russian covert interference, including disinformation campaigns and a plan to transport Russian Armenians into Armenia to sway the vote. One analyst collective described it as one of the largest state-backed disinformation campaigns in modern European history. And Armenia still told them to get lost. Putin had already warned Armenia it would face economic consequences for drifting westward, and introduced restrictions on Armenian agricultural exports in the weeks before the vote.  Threats, propaganda, economic blackmail. The full Russian toolkit. Result: irrelevant. Now, Trump, Tucker Carlson and JD Vance would like you to believe that Russia represents some superior civilisational model. A proud, white, Christian fortress holding the line against the Muslim hordes supposedly swamping Europe. It is a compelling narrative, in the same way that flat earth theory is compelling if you ignore every single fact available to you. Here is one such fact: between 10 and 15 percent of Russia’s own population is Muslim. Tatars, Bashkirs, Chechens, Ingush, Dagestanis. Millions of them. Russia is, by its own demographic reality, a multi-ethnic, multi-faith state with a larger Muslim population than most of Western Europe. But you’re not supposed to know that. It complicates the story. Meanwhile, the Muslim share of the EU population sits at around 5 percent. But the Tucker Carlsons of the world need you frightened, so the numbers get quietly shuffled off stage. So Armenia joins the queue. Behind Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and every Eastern European country that isn’t currently run by a Slovak who seems to have wandered in from a Moscow focus group. The pattern is not subtle. Every country that has actually experienced Russian influence in practice is sprinting in the opposite direction. The only nation currently moving toward Russia’s orbit is the United States, which managed to elect a man whose foreign policy instincts were apparently shaped by a property developer’s admiration for strongmen with good buildings. The world watches America and hopes it finds its way back. Most people think it will. Eventually. The damage, however, is already considerable, and democracy, like a soufflé, does not always survive rough handling. Armenia made its choice. The right one. Obviously. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1 x.com/LesiaLVD/status/206374…

🚨 BREAKING: Trump has a complete MELTDOWN on Meet the Press. Kristen Welker presses him on his wild California election conspiracies. Trump calls her “crooked” and “stupid,” calls the press crooked, calls Meet the Press crooked, and throws a tantrum about how unfair everything is. Then he dramatically storms out mid-interview like a toddler who lost at recess. Classic Trump: zero answers, all insults, instant exit. Thank you, Kristen Welker — this is how you handle him. 🔥

EMBARRASSING: As Americans face economic anxiety and a growing conflict abroad, Trump is busy bragging about the size of a reflecting pool like it's a national achievement.

Insecure dinosaur.

Access to the most sensitive national-security systems in government, paired with a demonstrated willingness to pursue unsubstantiated, politically motivated allegations against perceived enemies and zero qualifications for the job, puts everyone at risk.

"No known national security experience": Trump Names Housing Chief Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence wsj.com/politics/policy/bill…

Israeli Far-right Minister and Cabinet member Itamar Ben-Gvir states that Netanyahu must reject Trump's demand and take action in Lebanon, contrary to the U.S. President's instructions

Bezalel Smotrich should be sanctioned by American political and Jewish communal leaders - not marching alongside them in the streets of New York City. Smotrich: ❌ is the architect of the Israeli government’s policies to ultimately annex the West Bank. ❌ said that “it may be just and moral” to starve 2 million Gaza residents, but "no one in the world would let us." ❌ is a supporter of "greater Israel" - believing that Israel should not only annex the West Bank, but go beyond into other nations like Jordan. ❌ believes Palestinians aren't real ❌ is a settler in the West Bank haaretz.com/us-news/2026-05-…

Kuwait has been a generous host of US military bases since 1991, with clear aim of deterring Iraq. Only later did the bases become critical support for US campaigns in Afghanistan, and now apparently, Iran. Ironically, Kuwait has not historically considered Iran a threat.

13 Signs That Israel Missed: How Disaster Unfolded the Night Before October 7 - Israel Security haaretz.com/israel-news/isra….